


Torchsong from the Cuttingroom

by hoist



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Extramarital Affairs, F/F, French... stuff, Non-Graphic Smut, gratuitous discussion of Edith Piaf, implied domestic abuse, lots of French jokes, pre-widowmaker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 10:49:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14400570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoist/pseuds/hoist
Summary: Doctors aren't immune to flights of fancy.





	Torchsong from the Cuttingroom

**(20:21)** _Do you plan to sit out there all night?_

  
  
Two minutes pass on the dashboard clock, in nausea-green block numerals. Each one feels like a tap on the shoulder. Angela has not even taken off her seatbelt.  She picks up her comm device, and rereads the message, and puts it down again.

She could pretend something came up. Perhaps an emergency at the base, something that requires her immediate attention. If Blackwatch had to cancel, called away by an unexpected opportunity in Reykjavik, it stands to reason medical support may need to step in elsewhere.

Another minute on the clock.

She could pretend the message had bumped. That her comm was malfunctioning.

Deep, steadying breaths. Typically she’s fine by the third or fourth, but this is not like surgery. Surgery allows room  to prepare. There’s available information. Even kneeling in a ditch on two hours’ of sleep and wrist-deep in a body cavity, with mortar fire percussing her bones like bells, Angela can wrest herself into steadiness with sedimented years of experience and practicals.

But here. The only thing she has to go on is the warm coaxing in Amélie’s voice earlier on, pouring out over the phone, insisting they keep the date regardless. _Why trouble?_ she said. _They’re welcome to leftovers._

Another minute on the clock.

Angela’s temple has begun to take on a tension cramp when her comm goes off again.

 

 **(20:26)** _You are so silly!_

 **(20:26)** _Come inside, and have a glass with me._

 

Angela holds a breath. Then -- carefully -- releases it.

Yes. A drink might help.

She watches her shoes as she approaches the door. Later she’ll regret not paying more attention to the Lacroix home’s design and decor, having missed out on the details. But if she pauses now she may not start again. Momentum carries her up the walkway, lights painting cream along the lacquer of her shoes, and up to the entrance. It’s cooled by stone even with the humid night. One hand opens the front door while the other buries in her jacket pocket, practicing sutures.

[ The door opens ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgn8gZHJZzA) and Angela jumps so badly it nearly shuts again. The foyer spills with some French lounge music she recognizes from undergrad. And the _aroma_ \-- Angela in fact felt vaguely nauseous in the car, but the cooking smells change that. She cannot place what they are.

The foyer is dark: light from the kitchen rolls in like a divine act. The sound of water running accompanies the music for a moment. Just past the threshold to the kitchen is a sprawling hallway, as well as a staircase tapered like a cake to the second floor. Both are dark. The thought intrudes that many of the lights must often be out.

Angela nerves herself. And then she steps into kitchen, and there is Amélie.

She is mostly in profile. Long, slim arms are bare in a sleeveless licorice turtleneck as she chops vegetables on the cuttingboard. Her hair is tied up, and trailing low between her shoulders. Angela had no idea it was so long. Each time she’s seen Amélie it’s been pulled back high in a tasteful bun.  The tail it makes now is nearly long enough to touch the back of Amélie’s slacks, wedding-colored and high-waisted, and the tip of it moves gently in rhythm with her knifework.

Angela fidgets with the lapel of her chamois, desperate for a prop of some kind. She left her bag in the car. It’s a force of willpower to peel her hand away.

“Just let me finish this,” Amélie says, over her shoulder. She doesn’t look up from the cuttingboard.  “There’s a glass on the island for you.”

So there is. Some type of red. Six low-backed stools line the side of the island opposite Amélie, with two more on the same side as her.  Angela opts for one of the six. She takes a few moments to remember how to pull out a chair. Once successfully seated her shoulders try to hunch. She pulls them back, clearing her throat in silence. This isn’t her desk.

She takes in Amélie’s kitchen. An apparent preference for quartz and stainless steel gives it a spacious, clean, modern feeling. At least to Angela’s tastes. Her time on base and in the field hasn’t left much room for domestic appreciations.  From her seat at the island, she can just make out the window Amélie must have looked through to see Angela’s car, and a muscle in her jaw clenches; she had to have watched Angela idle for ten minutes, at least, before even sending the first message.

Deep, steadying breath. It helps.

While the majority of the room is spotless, there’s a comforting degree of clutter to the spices and measuring implements currently scattered on the counters. ‘Clean as you go’ may not be a habit instilled in young bluebloods. That’s worth a smile.

But she quickly runs out of things to admire besides Amélie. Angela takes up her glass for a sip, and finally chances a glance at her hostess, only to find her staring right back with one immaculate eyebrow raised.

“Did you hear me?”  
  
“Say again?” Angela jumps and bites her cheek in her haste -- the wine swirls dangerously in its glass. “Pardon, I was -- just taking in your kitchen,” she says. “It’s lovely,” she finishes, a bit lamely.  
  
“It’s very flattered.” If Angela’s not mistaken, Amélie’s eyes laugh.  “I asked the last time you had duck.”  
  
She finally connects the dots. The aroma. Angela’s never had a keen nose, but of course. Of course Amélie would make duck confit for entertaining guests.  
  
“Now _there_ is a smug look.” Chin tilted, Amélie studies her from across the island. Warmth flitters in Angela’s chest. “Something amusing?”  
  
[ Oh, goodness. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Kvu6Kgp88) “It’s…” Angela smiles, and tries to hide it behind her glass. “... very French, is all.”  
  
“‘Very French’! _Very French,_ she says! Doctor Ziegler, you may return that wine!”  
  
A nervous giggle slips past her lips, face warm. She hasn’t giggled since her first residency.

“Do you like it?”  Amélie’s voice is unbearably fond. She takes up her own glass, holding it aloft to the light. “It’s one of my favorites with duck. A Madiran, from Bordeaux. Usually you hear ‘Pinot, Pinot, Pinot,’ but I prefer a bit less structure…”

Angela pauses between nods. She knows terribly little about wine. Maybe Amélie senses this, because she prattles on in her analysis with only perfunctory prompts for Angela’s input:  ‘Mmm’s and ‘Oh?’s, simple enough.

Amélie half-turns back to her chopping; she pauses, bringing her glass to her lips and taking a pull of her favored Madiran. A slice of neck appears above her turtleneck as she drinks.  
  
Angela shifts in her seat.

Amélie’s already turned back to her board -- reaching into the sink -- long, green stalks that she sets to with her knife. It might be fennel.

“When did you learn to cook?” At long last, Angela’s brain conjures some sort of conversational initiative. It will have to do.

Amélie’s head tips upward as her knifework slows. From what’s visible, her frown is thoughtful. “Fourteen? Perhaps? My first time making this, at least. But I was learning the basics from our cook very early. Eggs, dicing, so on.” She angles a glance over her shoulder. It’s mischievous. “I was still cute enough to scurry underfoot, then.”  
  
She seems completely, utterly at ease. And why not? In her own home? Having a drink, and dinner, with an acquaintance? Angela should relax. The dossier of moments she’s been compiling over the past months is a fussy pile of misread signals. This is just part of Amélie:  the cheek, the playfulness. Those were _not_ lingering glances from across the room at the winter function. There had been no particular meaning in her compliments to Angela at the spring gala, or the fingertips that kept seeking out her arm. There was nothing suspect in how Amelie had enjoyed a dance with her husband, while happening to watch the doctor eddy through the crowd. Brown eyes like foxes from over his shoulder.

Angela should relax.

“Thank you for cooking,” she begins again, when her PhDs offer no follow-up comment. “Even when the others could not make it.”

“I’ve wanted to get to know you one-on-one for awhile now.” Amélie says it lightly, still working. “Let’s call it serendipity.”

Her tongue sticks. After a moment, she manages, “Yes. Alright.”

Conversation takes a merciful pause as parboiled potatoes hit the pan with a sizzle. The sound barely covers up a cluck of disgust as Amélie leans -- her slacks tug like another skin at the curve of her hip -- and returns, pinching some forgotten ingredient into the pan. Angela fails to note what it is.  Amélie shifts her weight to one heel, syrupy-slow, hip jutting out like a upturned palm --

Angela’s hand moves for a refill while her eyes do not, and nearly topples the damned bottle. Distracted, Amélie does not look over.

She takes a deep breath, quietly. And then two or three more. The music is lucky cover.

She manages not to destroy the kitchen while the final touches are made. Amélie moves like she’s taking stage direction as she prepares their first plate (“-- would usually settle for one dish for the meal, but almost seems a shame --”), thinking to add a salt and pepper grinder at the very last moment, far outside of Angela’s reach. It’s endearing.

“Duck confit, sautéed potatoes, light salad,” Amélie announces. She places their plates of the lattermost on the island, taking her seat across from Angela. Her voice is dry. “I’m a woman of simple pleasures.”

“I’m not certain I believe that.”

It’s not a particularly _searing_ quip. But she delivers it with smooth timing, which is more than enough to impress herself at the moment.

Amélie too, apparently.

“I was _wondering_ when the rest of you would show up!” She laughs, refilling both their glasses with a practiced hand. “Your little work family always gets to enjoy your acid wit.  I was beginning to worry I’d offended.”

Angela weighs another riposte, from that comment alone. She wants to hear that laugh again.

Instead she smiles quietly, bringing her fork to her lips. The salad is delightful. Crisp greens, arugula, toasted walnuts, segmented oranges sitting like gems. Some bright vinaigrette she forgets to ask about that feels like a candied bedspring in her mouth.

Between bites, Amélie presses more wine.

”Tell me about work today,” she hums.

Angela’s fork pauses on the way to her mouth. A thought intrudes: _Does she ask Gerard this?_

She feels no desire to, in honesty. A comment sticks in her throat, and she slows in her chewing. She feels abruptly exposed. Most of the evening, Amélie has talked, and talked and talked, and Angela is comfortable with that rhythm. She is not ready to answer it.

[ The track changes again. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0feNVUwQA8U) This is one Angela is quite familiar with, and she realizes with sleepy adolescent nostalgia that Edith Piaf has been playing all along.

The urge to laugh nearly wins out. Of course. Of course, Amélie would love Edith Piaf.

As the track continues in earnest, Angela’s brow wrinkles in feigned concentration. “I think I’ve heard this before… who is the artist?”

“Edith Piaf.”

“Oh, I don’t know that one.” Angela’s eyes flicker over Amélie’s hands. “A favorite of yours?”

Her hostess wipes the corner of her lips with a napkin. “Renowned singer, terrible mother, disastrous lover.” She sighs, dreamy. “My biographer.”

Angela’s relieved her distraction has worked. She scoffs in jest.  “How dramatic.”

“How _Swiss_ ,” she counters, eyebrows arched. Angela laughs. “ _None_ of you appreciate a good tragedy.”

The main course is next. The duck defies words. Amélie carries on at length in her mellow, afternoon tones how she dry-brined and seasoned and poached and crisped, but Angela’s only half-listening. She hasn’t really eaten leading up to dinner, in honesty. Always prone to a nervous stomach. The potatoes are rich and waxy, quartered and sauteed with a crust that melts in her mouth, and she might make a small sound of appreciation at her first taste. Maybe the second. The on-base meals are more of a backdrop for catching up on emails, rather than any sensory luxury.

She’s just combined a morsel of duck and vinaigrette together when she becomes very aware of Amélie watching her. It’s unclear how long she has been. The fork takes on sudden, lopsided weight in her hand as she brings the bite to her mouth. It’s become an exercise in dexterity to fit it in properly. Angela weighs glancing upward.

When the mouthful is blank and tasteless from suspense, she does, and yes. Amélie is watching.

Angela meets the gaze for a slivered moment. When she drops her eyes again, she hears a puff of air. A soft laugh.

“Do they not feed you in that dreary lab?”

She reaches for her wine, neck itching. “You’re a very good cook.” It comes out as a mumble. She adds, a bit foolishly, “I’m not down in the lab too often.”

“I’m glad you like it.” There’s some genuine warmth in her voice. And. Maybe a trace of relief. If Angela’s not very much mistaken.

Amélie’s forkful languishes as she continues. ”There must be some perks to the _dungeon_ , though.” Her tone is musing as she uses Angela’s own term for it. From a discussion they had at the spring gala, over four months ago. “The medical bay, from what I understand, spreads you very thin.”

That’s true. Still. Angela clears her throat. “I have many good people under me. If you don’t work well, you don’t last long.”

“Oh, my. Does Dr. Ziegler run a tight ship?”

“I do.” This comes out slowly. Not much she’s at liberty to elaborate upon. “There’s no room for avoidable error.”

“And how about in the lab?”

Her experiments. Her nanites. The fountain of youth, if you asked the right person. Angela’s throat clears again. She tries for a smile. “This must be quite boring.”

“I _am_ asking,” Amélie counters, nonplussed. “At my own hazard.”

Angela takes another bite to avoid an answer. Amélie watches her. But Angela does not look up.

“I saw you speak last year, at a conference. In Zurich.” Amélie’s eyes trace along Angela’s expression. She can feel them. “We had not even met yet. You spoke very movingly about the preservation of life. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks.”

Long, long fingers trace along the stem of her wineglass. She goes on. “I would like to hear more about what goes on behind the scenes, in what your time goes towards. What’s being created that no one’s seen before.”

It’s a bold moment for Angela. She gathers her nerve in her teeth and her fork clinks to her plate.

Angela’s eyes are many things, but they are not warm. And she has not looked fully at the other woman yet tonight. But she does now. She levels Amélie’s gaze with her own: tempered, impartial, as though her hostess is laid open like a lily on the operating table. _What are you doing?_ is what Angela asks with that look.

It fails to have the desired effect. Amélie’s returns it, in fact. Comfortable. Patient.

Seconds pass. Edith changes [ to another track ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBXaJutEFB0&index=35&list=RDImNcSYpRjvE) as they watch each other. At the same moment, they both look back down to their plates.

Amélie speaks first, after. “You seem to keep yourself quite busy, is all.”

“There is always more to do,” Angela says. Always more. There is always more. “I’ll never finish it all.”

“All the more reason to pace yourself.” Amélie’s plate clinks gently as she releases her fork, and reaches for her glass. Her voice is a shade too cool.  “What do you do in your free time?”

Ah. She’s beginning to catch on. The tide of this interaction. The push and the pull, the tease and coax. Amélie prying her open. A little at a time.

It’s an unusual position for Angela. She decides she has had her fill of it, for the evening.

Her nerve gathers again. The sinew in her cheek tugs like a ligature as she smiles. ”I’m very careful.”

Something flickers in Amélie’s expression. Something Angela can’t place. In that moment, the playful pinch around her eyes takes its first leave of the evening, and her lips purse like she’s been fed old medicine.

Perhaps her tone did not ring quite playfully enough. Anxiety cinches -- her flip comment is the last thing out before her throat twists closed.

Angela can’t hold the gaze. She drops her eyes back to her plate. Maybe the more she manages to get into her mouth, the less awkward tripe will fall out.

They eat in silence. Mostly. Save for the occasional squeak of silverware and the gentle thumps of their glasses on the quartz. Complete silence, at one point, when the music switches to [ a new track. ](https://youtu.be/xvFgoVYIK5A?t=17)

A warm sound blooms across the island. A sigh. It’s bribery enough to have Angela look up from her plate, just as Amélie muses to the room, “My first kiss with another woman was to this song.”

A pink pop of pain: Angela’s bitten her cheek. But she very carefully does not freeze. Instead she perks her eyebrows, politely interested, stomach churning. What do you say to that? What do you say? “Oh?”

(It comes out muffled -- she’s trying to dodge the sore spot.)

“Another dancer.” If Amélie notices Angela’s sudden terror, she fails to show it. Her gaze is unfocused and levelled past the threshold into the dark foyer. “We were the newest recruits. Terrified. If anyone had found us out, we were certain they would eject us from the company.” Her glass drifts to her lips before the haze clears from her eyes. When it does, she smirks. “Come to find that most of them were similar. They had more disapproval for my hips than where I put my lips.”

The pang of confusion is all that saves Angela from her imagination. “Your hips?”

“‘A bit motherly for ballet, Guillard,’” she recites, airy. Her look is reflective. A smidgen wistful.

Angela makes a disgusted sound. “What garbage.” An inappropriate, nonsensical thing to say to anyone.

Knuckles prop beneath Amélie’s chin, wineglass swirling. “You disagree?”

“Fundamentally,” Angela grunts, severing a potato.  “You were recruited. You had the talent, and the ability. If you can dance, what does it matter what your body looks like?” She’s finished eating, delicious as it is. A waste of potato.

Her words finally drift to her own ears. Oh. She clears her throat, glancing up. “... which is perfectly fine, by the way.”

Amélie laughs. It makes the room a bit warmer. She wets her lips and parts them, leaning farther into the island. Angela’s breath catches. It puts the two women within reach of each other. Amélie is intent upon saying something and unconsciously, Angela leans, too: to meet in the middle.

But the impulse must vanish. Instead she smiles, almost shyly, and reaches over for Angela’s plate. “Here. I’ll wash.”

The spell is broken. Angela blinks. “Oh, let me --”

“Absolutely not.”

“Just a small thing, I can --”

“Touch so much as a butterknife,” Amélie drawls, eyes arched like scimitars, “and you shall never set foot upon the premises _again._ ”

She says it with such regal pomp, Angela can’t help but titter. It doesn’t curb her protests, though. “I can’t just... watch you.”

Not comfortably.

“I trust you will find some way to occupy yourself.”

Angela sits. Her hands clasp in her lap. Feeling rather foolish, she smooths her skirt against her thighs. She finds some invisible lint to brush away.

From her stool, she can see part of the den -- lush with dark woods -- and on the far side of it, another staircase leading upward. Truly a beautiful, sprawling home. And she’s restless. She clears her throat, quietly.  “May I look around?”

“I don’t believe I’ve tied you there.”

Thank God her back stays turned. Angela’s eyes bug. She conceals it with a scoff, though, and rises, feeling a bit light-headed. The wine is warming.

She takes her glass (carefully; what an embarrassment that would be, to stain the carpet) and retreats to the sitting room. A steadying breath helps. Maybe two.

The dining room must be a different section altogether. There is no long, elegant table she would expect for serving guests in here. Instead there are a collection of desks, towering bookshelves, two fireplaces, chaises. It’s well lit. Though she cannot smell them, Angela notes some candles flickering around the edges of the room.

Her attention pulls to a far corner. It’s where the music has been drifting from all evening. The sleek sound system she expects to see fails to appear, however. The image that greets her instead falls short of processing. As she steps closer, it falls into place -- a prop in historical dramas, and the one or two cartoons Angela can remember watching while young.

It’s a record player: one of the ancient kind, with the speaker horn that opens up like a tulip.  A vinyl record, a _real_ vinyl record, spins beneath the needle as Edith moves into [ her next song. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akRLH3ibGdA) 

Upon closer inspection, there _is_ a sound system. Speakers line the room, connected to the record player in a fashion that would have taken many times the effort of any typical contemporary one.

A laugh bubbles to Angela’s lips. Charmed.

“Find anything interesting?” Amélie calls from the threshold. She’s since finished cleaning. A small blessing, too, that she knows better than to surprise her. It spares both Angela and the carpet.

She waits until Amélie is closer before taking a seat in the chaise nearest the record player. Her smile is warm, and she hums, “‘Simple pleasures,’ she claims.”

Amélie smiles, too. She shrugs. “I’ve a weakness for certain trappings.”

To put it lightly. Angela laughs, louder now.

She watches, warm, as Amélie takes the chaise next to her. Her glass balances in her hand with practiced grace, and one long, devilish leg spills in cursive over the armrest in a show both cozy and completely indecent. Angela watches. Settled at this angle, Amélie’s collar dips to reveal the vulnerable flesh just beneath her jaw.

The sight digs like a tourniquet. Angela wets her lips.

“I simply had to. For Edith.” A bit more shifting is in order as she gets comfortable in the chaise. Not her typical seat, perhaps. Angela realizes it must be the one she’s currently taken. Once settled, though, Amélie sighs over the rim of her glass. She gazes fondly at her record player.  “Gerard accuses me of sentimentalism.”  
  
The name hits Angela like icewater. It’s the first mention of him all evening. _Gerard,_ Amélie says, _my husband,_ she means, with the simplicity of a door swinging closed. The lovely meal turns to gravel in her belly. Angela swallows.  
  
“I can’t blame him,” she says, a bit too quietly.  
  
Amélie laughs. She fiddles with the hem of her shirt, still watching the record roll. “I think I’m entitled. She seems to bring that out in people. You know,” and her voice lowers with intrigue, lips teasing the rim of her glass, “she inveigled St. Thérèse herself to heal her blindness.”  
  
“Keratitis doesn’t require divine intervention to heal,” Angela finds her mouth saying, “especially in children.” Her voice sounds dull to her own ears. “There’s evidence, in fact, that many of those early stories were just rumors she encouraged.”  
  
She takes a sip of her wine, fending off sobriety. Amélie says nothing. Angela wets her lips again. The tannins stick like burrs in her mouth, she realizes, making her thirstier; they’ve been doing so all night. It would do her well to slow down.

Still no response. When Angela looks up, Amélie’s expression is one of shocked incomprehension.  
  
Angela blinks stupidly. “What?” Her face heats.  
  
Slowly the look of surprise fades: it leaves behind something inscrutable. The expression that spreads on Amélie’s face is rich and cool, like stone, like the wine in her glass, not quite smiling. It reaches her eyes.

“Why, doctor,” she begins, ponderously slow. Like the words might crack in her mouth if uncareful.  “Where’s your sense of wonder?”  
  
_Scheisse._ Here Amélie has been playing this artist all night, and sharing memories connected to her songs. And the first thing Angela tries to do once she can actually speak is to poke holes in her mythology.  
  
“I’m sure there’s plenty of truth to some of it,” Angela recovers, scooting up in her chair.  
  
Amélie hums. It’s a careful sound. She watches Angela a moment longer before shrugging. “Plenty of human truths, if not ones of occurence. For example.” Her glass comes to her lips but she does not swallow. Not from appearances. When it comes away again, she is frowning. “I don’t believe that being raised in a brothel was what kept her from turning men away. I believe it was being raised as a woman.”

There’s a pause. In that moment, [ the song changes. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwe3CzWZ4Bg)

Amélie pays it no mind.

“She felt she could not tell them no. That that was not an option, for her.” Her eyes are hard. She looks decades older in that moment, staring up into the staircase, into the rest of her home. “One hundred years later, we are still women.”

The sudden bitterness tangs against the upbeat track.  Amélie cannot see her, but Angela nods, frowning. She’s not certain where this is going.

“You are beautiful, Angela. And charming.” She says it so simply Angela can’t help but balk. Amélie’s eyes are still gazing to the second floor. “Surely you’ve felt that. Experienced it.”

Oh. Well. Angela has. She’s rather well-insulated, though. The layers of fame, the prestige.

“It’s… men have tried. Certainly.” Angela wets her lips. None have gotten far when she didn’t want them to. Thankfully. “I don’t make myself very available.”

“Have you always been that way?” Amélie asks. Then immediately answers: “I think not. You learned, I would say. _Had_ to learn.”

She smiles. It feels cautious. “Feeling protective of me?”

“I’m protective of all women.” Her voice is still hard. But when she looks at Angela again, her eyes have softened. It spills a little pool of relief in Angela’s chest, one she didn’t know she needed.

Amélie’s hand moves; for a heart-wrenching moment, it seems she wants to reach out to take Angela’s. They are close enough. They could touch, if she wanted. If she reached out.

Angela’s breath holds.

Instead the hand comes back to Amélie’s own throat, to her turtleneck. Her fingers pluck at the material, and she turns again towards the dark. “We would not be so wrong to strike back, now and again.”

Air comes back to Angela in a quiet hiccup. She feels she’s missed something. She wets her lips, again, half-laughing, “H.. have you had this talk with Gerard?”

“We will talk no more of Gerard tonight.”

Angela’s throat wrings closed. Her mouth is dry.

Amélie stands. She is tall, tall, angled hard as her knifework, wreathed in firelight from behind like some restless Pagan specter. But her eyes are gentle as she looks down at Angela. It has gratitude curling within her: more warming than the wine. The tenderness, she wants. Yes. This Amélie.

The hand not holding her glass extends to Angela. She takes it, and begins to rise, just as Amélie croons, “We’ve yet to have dessert.”

Angela’s knees almost give.

“Oh!” Amélie helps steady her, half-laughing (what a sound, it’s lovely, worth the heat in her cheeks), “Careful!”

“Good thing my glass is empty,” Angela titters.

“Maybe.” She smiles, rueful. “Perhaps you should stay the night,” she says, rather than _You shouldn’t be driving._

“No, no.” Angela shakes her head. She doesn’t release her hold on Amélie, though. “I just need some coffee.”

Some coffee. Some dessert. Some time, and maybe a glass of water.

They return to the kitchen before Angela thinks to ask, “What kind of dessert?”

“Tarte tatin, with pear.” Amélie’s voice returns to its airy lilt from earlier in the evening. “If that’s not too _French_ for you?”

“I don’t much care for pear,” she teases.

“Oh my, a nonbeliever.” She seats Angela at the island, this time in one of the two stools nearest to her. “Consider it a substance transformed, doctor. My cooking is alchemy.”

Angela watches, wonderfully warm, as Amélie maneuvers. It’s like watching a very talented mirage. She sets water to boiling, dark beans to grinding -- coffee to percolating in the press -- and leans before the middle of the island, artful, pulling the dish from the warming drawer. Angela had not even noticed it.

The tarte is beautiful, of course. Quick work from Amélie has them both with plates, syrupy golden, gorgeous. Angela can smell musical notes. But it’s the steaming mug of dark, silky coffee, soft with fragrant oils from the press, that truly has Angela sagging on her elbows against the island. There may or may not be a quiet moan. She enjoys. The taste, the steam, the grounding heat of the mug in her hand… it has some of her faculties returning, in pieces. Thank God.

When her eyes open again, on the tailend of a sigh, it’s to Amélie’s grin.  
  
“Wonderful,” is all Angela manages.

Amélie laughs, delighted. “Dr. Ziegler’s true vice: revealed!”

“More than wine, at least.” She smiles. “Forgive me.”

Amélie hums. A lock of hair threatens to break free from the others as she leans, taking a bite of tarte from her plate. “I held off on coffee for years.” She’s neglected to take a seat. Instead she's propped one hip against the island, right beside Angela. “Thinking that it would stunt my height for dance.”

It’s a triumph to chew back the retort of _There’s no evidence to suggest that --_ “I’d say you dodged that bullet.”

Amélie nods, pulling away from the island. Her hips straighten -- her back straightens -- her arms rise, swelling orchestral. One pointed toe traces along the inseam of her slacks, slow, painfully slow. Then she bends at the waist: one arm reaches forward, one reaches back, her leg arcing upward as mystic and proud as a dowsing rod.

Angela gawks.

“Child-bearing hips or no,” Amélie drawls, holding, “I could always keep up with the other girls.”

The pose does unspeakable things. To... everything. Angela tries to agree without groping with her eyes. Some caramelized pear falls from her fork and back to her plate with a gluey _bluck._

“I-I never was much for athletics,” she mumbles, reaching for her coffee.

“We need to get you out from that desk more often.” Amélie’s leg retracts back to Earth. She looks terribly smug.  “It’s hurting your posture.”

“That and the scoliosis,” Angela grunts, unthinking. Another sip of coffee re-clears her brain. Enough that when she looks back up, she registers what she’s said. Amélie’s eyebrows are perked high.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she is. “That was rude of me. I didn’t know.”  
  
That flusters her. Angela waves, hurried. “No, no, you’re not wrong. Sedentary habits certainly don’t help.” Another reason she tries to spread her time between the lab and the medical wing. Doctors get far more legwork than scientists.  “It’s not even a very big curve,” she adds, mollifying.

Amélie nods. “I’ve never noticed it.” And now she feels Amélie’s eyes tracing her body.

[ Oh, goodness. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kya3c4WJZAk)

“The… ah, the coat,” Angela mumbles. Amélie is stepping closer again.  “The coat usually hides it well.”

What good is that? Mentioning that. Her coat is back at the base.

Oh, no.

Not just her eyes -- her _hand_ traces. Right along the middle of her back. Angela shivers.

Amélie seems not to notice. She asks, soothing, “Where?”  
  
The hand is gentle, but it sears to the skin like an iron.  Like a circuit closing.

Angela turns towards her. Another half inch, unknowing. Unwilling to turn away again. Crave builds in her like teething, and pulls away from her, towards the touch, towards Amélie, a restless thing on a crumbling lead. Angela cannot meet her eyes. She can’t afford to.

There’s still time to stop this. There is.

Angela swallows.

But Amélie’s hand is rolling warmth along her back, setting every available nerve into gentle riot, neurons blossoming with analgesic want.

Amélie hasn’t mentioned the music since Angela’s hamfisted commentary earlier. Neither of them have. The record has since phased into a new track and Angela latches onto it like a lifeline, clutches it to her.

There’s still time.  
  
“What,” air is harder to come by, “what is ‘Padam’?” It’s a question in earnest this time. She’s unfamiliar. Her voice is almost steady as she asks, “It’s n-not French. Is it?”

It doesn’t seem like it. Angela knows some. Less so as seconds pass.  
  
“It’s a nonsense sound.” A careful murmur. It catches warm, and venously slow, down Angela’s neck, meeting the touch along her spine through her skin. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. Or it could mean many things.”

Amélie’s other hand: soft fingers, tracing sweetly as a matchstrike down Angela’s cheek. Amélie’s breath: feathering the hair against her brow.

“But it follows her.” Brushstroke of thumb against Angela’s lips, beautiful, cauterizing, “She cannot shake it.”  
  
Her hands are trembling as she clutches the back of Amélie’s neck, deep into a terrified kiss, pulling her closer, as close as they can get.

There’s no time to turn off the music. Things blend together: Here Amélie is laving her way into Angela’s mouth, Angela’s thighs around her waist -- here is warm touch beneath her skirt,  stroking, petting, so shocking and good it fossilizes her with pleasure against the counter where Amélie’s cornered her -- white-knuckled around the quartz as she gasps _Amélie_ and comes, shaking, lips and teeth marbled warm against her neck, _Amélie,_ and again, louder, more: _Amélie, Amélie._

Once they begin, it is impossible to stop. So they don’t. They don’t, they keep going, Angela strips her from the waist down and kneels as Amélie leans against the counter, face between her thighs, all flesh and wetness, fingers threaded in her hair and crooning praise. They keep going and Amélie pins her sprawling and red-cheeked to one of the chaises to return the affection, Angela’s elbow hooked in the crook of her leg as she grimaces through the heat, rocks herself against it. They run a bath and leave half the water on the floor.

They keep going. They do. They don’t even towel off before burrowing into cloying sheets, skin and skin, still dripping, kisses August-thick and scared, hissing eager, they sink into each other -- writhing under satin, captured, swallowing whole: meeting and repeating touch, and gasps, and _Amélie_ and _Angela_ and _please_ and _yes_ and _more,_ sweetly suffocating.

She kisses her jaw, salt-warm and sticking. She wants more. There’s time. There’s still time. Time before they are back from Reykjavik, from the false flag Angela had arranged, months ago, after the gala.

“Amélie,” she breathes, bones ringing like bells, eyes open in the dark, “Amélie.”

**Author's Note:**

> Im really out here in 20gayteen serving y'all some modern day songfic, get at me


End file.
